NCBS lab retracts scientific paper after evidence of data fraud
The Hindu
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A research paper by scientists at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), among India’s top research institutes and part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, announcing a breakthrough in the field of chemical biology, and published in the prestigious Nature Chemical Biology (NCB), has been retracted as its key findings were manipulated. On October 5, 2020, the paper “Discovery of iron-sensing bacterial riboswitches” was published online in the NCB. The publication was announced in an NCBS press release on October 6, 2020. Its listed authors were Siladitya Bandyopadhyay, Susmitnarayan Chaudhury, Dolly Mehta and Arati Ramesh, the last of whom was the group leader and is faculty at the NCBS. The finding was significant as it announced the discovery of a new class of RNA (ribonucleic acid) molecules that could detect iron. Thus far, it was thought, iron could be detected only by specialised protein. RNA molecules, it has emerged, could detect nickel, cobalt, manganese but being able to detect iron, a key element that’s vital for governing many biochemical processes, opened the possibility of designing RNA-based sensors. The discovery was widely covered in several media publications.More Related News